“Have some duck, it’s delicious,” said the queen, whose plate was already full. “There was a soup, but I told them to bring it back later. I’m too hungry to be filling my stomach with water.”
“My parents starved you,” said Lovisa, with a small implosion of shame.
“I shouldn’t have reminded you,” said the queen more gently. “I’m sorry. You didn’t starve me, Lovisa.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lovisa. “Why are we having a secret meeting?”
“I’ll get to the point,” said the queen. “I’ve been wondering if it would help you if I were to pretend that I was the one who overheard your mother yelling at your father. That I was awake when your father struck Pari Parnin down, while your mother tried to stop him. That I, not you, saw him carry Pari to the airship.”
The queen kept talking, but Lovisa hardly heard, because she’d entered a beautiful kind of shock.
“Why?” she heard herself saying. “Why? Bitterblue? Why would you do this?”
For the first time in the conversation, the queen looked uncertain.
No, Lovisa thought to herself, watching Bitterblue’s quiet, steady face, her firm chin. The eyes that seemed to shine at Lovisa with unshed tears. She’s not uncertain.
She sees me, Lovisa thought, falling into another, new surprise. She understands.
“It will cost me nothing,” the queen said quietly.
“I can’t quite believe that. My father will refute you, accuse you of lying. And you’ll know he’s right.”
“It will cost me much less than testifying will cost you, Lovisa,” she said. “And being able to help you will be my reward.”
Lovisa reached her fork to the serving plate and took some duck. Sliced it, pushed it around. She wasn’t hungry, but she needed something to do, while she tried to absorb the shock of this woman caring about her and her situation.
“Lovisa,” the queen added. “Did you ever overhear your parents allude to the sinking of the Seashell?”
“No,” said Lovisa. “Not specifically.”
“I don’t like the gap it leaves in the court case,” the queen said. “My men were murdered. And Katu’s suspicions, and his abduction, make little sense without it too. Ah well. Have you shared any of your evidence with the Magistry yet?”
“No,” said Lovisa, thinking about the words her mother had yelled at Benni. “We never needed to hurt anyone! We were going to do everything legally! You never would have had to break a single law!” She’d told Mari her evidence. She’d told Nev. She’d shared it with her piglet, Worthy, cuddling him in a quiet corner of the Devret house, which was where Worthy was living these days, delighting her brothers, and apparently gaining a reputation as a genius. “We found him in the heat ducts,” Arni had told her gravely, the last time she’d visited. “Wandering around inside the walls from room to room. No idea how he got in there. Seemed confused about it himself.”
But she hadn’t shared it with the Magistry. Lovisa’s evidence lived inside herself, wandering around from head to heart to stomach, trying to decide where it belonged.
Maybe it could stay where it was?
“I’d like to think about this,” Lovisa told the queen. “May I have a few days to think about it?”
“Of course,” said Bitterblue. “As long as you need.”
“I—have homework to do,” Lovisa said. “Do you mind—”
She knew she was being rude. A queen had invited her to lunch. But just now, Lovisa needed to escape. She had a feeling Bitterblue would want her to escape, if that’s what she needed.
“Go, and be well,” said Bitterblue.
* * *
—
Outside, Lovisa’s feet carried her to the Devret house. She wanted to visit her brothers.
She saw a lot of them now, bringing her homework to the Devrets’ some nights, sleeping over on weekends. She and the boys had bedrooms of their own, in the part of the house where family slept. She would crowd with them on one of their beds and they’d all be talking and snacking and laughing, and she wouldn’t be able to shake the sense that it wasn’t safe. And then she’d remember that none of them were going to be punished if they were found together. Joy was no longer a thing they needed to steal.
Today she wished she could talk to Viri, Erita, and Vikti as their older selves, five, ten, twenty years from now. Find out how her decision about testifying would touch their lives. What would hurt them least? Her testimony, or the queen’s?
It was an impossible question to answer. They weren’t old enough. They were five, seven, and nine.
She did notice, as she walked, that her own question had changed. It had used to be: Should she testify or shouldn’t she? Now it was: Who should testify, Lovisa or the queen?
That was a big change.
* * *
—
Today, she found the boys crowded together on the Devrets’ library floor, playing City with someone familiar.
“Katu,” Lovisa said, always warming with relief and joy when she saw her uncle. From his position on his stomach, Katu shot her a smile.
“Lovisa!” the boys cried out. “Come play!”
“There’s hardly room!” she said, laughing.
“I’m going to steal your sister for a minute, boys,” Katu said, pushing himself up from the floor with creaks and groans. “Listen to me. You’d think I was sixty years old.”
“You’ll get younger as you recover,” said Lovisa jokingly, hoping it was true. He did look and seem older, and it tugged at her heart.
He led her into the corridor, then around the corner to a small sitting room close to the staff stairs. It was Lovisa and Katu’s unofficial meeting place at the Devret house, a room out of everyone else’s way, where they could sit together and catch up. The Devrets had noticed. The fire was always burning in here, whenever Katu came to visit.
“Erita told me something that touches upon one of our unsolved mysteries,” Katu said.
“Oh, no,” said Lovisa in dismay as she pulled a chair close to the fireplace. “Something he heard?” Erita kept randomly coming out with conversations he remembered having overheard between Benni and Ferla. It made Lovisa wonder what else was trapped inside these boys that they weren’t telling her yet, either deliberately, or because they’d forgotten.
“Yes,” said Katu grimly. “Apparently he heard Ferla yelling at Benni for not waiting until the zilfium vote before he started experimenting.”